Observing You
by Laura Schiller
Summary: AU for "Observer Effect". Almost dying of the silicone virus causes Trip to rethink his life, with surprising results for everyone concerned. Trip/Hoshi.


Observing You

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Enterprise_

Copyright: CBS

/

"_If I got locked away_

_And we lost it all today_

_Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same?_

_If I showed you my flaws_

_If I couldn't be strong_

_Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same?"_

"Locked Away" by R City feat. Adam Levine

/

Ensign Hoshi Sato was certainly full of surprises today.

Trip watched her curl up in that big gray blanket on the opposite bunk of the Decon chamber, looking pale and sweaty and red-eyed, probably feeling as much like crap as he did. Phlox's hyposprays had helped with the coughing and the nausea, but it didn't do much for the fever, which made his joints ache, his head swim, and every part of him shiver like he'd been dumped outdoors on Andoria.

Having Hoshi there, however, made it bearable. More than that – he was starting to wonder if he'd been walking around with blinders on for four years, not to notice what an extraordinary woman she was.

"So you ran a poker game and beat someone up at the Academy, huh?" he teased. "Never knew you had such a wild side."

"What?" She rolled her eyes and let her head slump against the wall. "Didn't think I had it in me? Too fragile? That's what everyone else thought at the time."

"Nuh-uh," he hurried to say. "That's not what I meant. Fragile's the last thing you are, anyone who's served with you knows that. It's just … in all these years, I don't think I've ever seen you break a regulation. Not once. Even your hair doesn't come down when you're on duty … well, until now."

Hoshi lifted a clumsy hand to wipe away the strands of hair stuck to her forehead. "You want the truth?" she muttered.

"Sure. I've got time." He cast an ironic eye at their surroundings, which made her smile.

"Okay, well … honestly, I've never been so embarrassed, before or since." She wrapped her blanket tightly around herself, shivered, and closed her eyes. "I was homeschooled, you know, with private tutors and everything. The Academy was the first time I got to live without my parents' supervision, talk to people my own age … it all went right to my head, and not in a good way."

Trip could imagine that. His own Academy training had been an eye-opener too, in a different way, especially the engineering track. The first time he got to look at a real warp engine had blown his mind, just as talking to strangers of all nations (and several planets) must have done for Hoshi. He'd been in trouble more than once too, even well into his career when he should have outgrown these things.

"Yeah, I get that. You're talkin' to the guy who helped his buddies steal a Warp Two shuttle, remember? Not my proudest moment … but a hell of a lot of fun."

Hoshi laughed behind her hand, quietly so as not to start coughing.

When he'd tried to tell T'Pol that story, she had raised an eyebrow at him and pointed out how fortunate he was not to have been arrested. He knew that already. Was it disloyal to T'Pol, he wondered, for him to enjoy making a woman laugh? Because he really missed that sometimes.

For a non-telepath, Hoshi's intuition was sometimes quite uncanny. She tilted her head and focused on him with wide brown eyes.

"Okay, enough about me," she said. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you for a long time, and what better time than now? What happens in Decon stays in Decon, right?"

"Go 'head."

"You and T'Pol and those Vulcan neuropressure sessions … " Was it the fever or was she blushing? "Are the rumors true?"

Trip's first instinct was to deny it, to bluster, to demand to know who was spreading those rumors and (as soon as he was cured of this virus) march up to them and shake them by the collar. But that would be useless. Besides, he knew that, as much as Hoshi loved a good gossip, that wasn't why she was asking. She was their friend, his and T'Pol's. And any friend of theirs, he had to admit, would have a right to be worried given the way they'd been acting over the past year and a half.

"Sorta," he said. "We, um … we did hook up once. Last year. It was 'round the time we found the Sphere-Builders' test subject in his shuttle."

"Oh." A strange expression crossed Hoshi's face. He would have expected her to be satisfied at her guess being proven correct, or maybe disapproval of her two senior officers getting distracted at such a critical point in the Xindi mission. Instead she looked down, her long eyelashes hiding her eyes, and examined the weave of her weave of her blanket for what felt like a long time. "So … what happened?"

He'd been asking himself the same question all year.

For a Vulcan, T'Pol's behavior toward him was completely illogical. One day she was coldly thanking him for his "help" with her "exploration of human sexuality", the next day she was telling him her age and making a point of how intimate that information was. She'd invited him to her childhood home on Vulcan, made him watch as she married another man, and kissed him – Trip – on the cheek right before the ceremony. Now she was divorced and still wouldn't come back to him, saying that studying the Kir'Shara left her no time, which they both knew was a pretty thin excuse.

Only today, when she'd come with Phlox to check on him and Hoshi, she'd been hiding behind such a thick layer of Vulcan politeness that they might as well be strangers. It would be heartbreaking if he hadn't seen it so often before.

He would be lying if he said it was all her fault, though. God only knew what she'd gone through in the Expanse, and later, being blackmailed into marriage and watching her own mother die. He'd pushed her too far. It was no wonder she'd pulled away.

"We just can't talk to each other," he said, with a sigh. "Her English is perfect, but it's like we're still speakin' different languages. I don't s'pose you can adjust the UT for that, can ya?"

"I'm afraid not," said Hoshi gently. "Sorry."

"I'm thinkin' of askin' for a transfer." He'd never told this to any of his shipmates, but since he'd already told her so much, why stop now? It was a deep relief to get all this off his chest. "Captain Hernandez offered me the chief engineer's post on _Columbia._ Might be good to … y'know … get a bit of distance."

He'd expected Hoshi to be sympathetic, perhaps even supportive. The last thing he expected was for her to lurch to her feet, shuffle over to his side of the chamber, and stand over him with a glare hotter than his plasma torch.

"_Don't. You. Dare._"

He stood up too, swaying a little, keeping one hand on the wall for balance. Having to look up at him didn't diminish the force of her glare one bit. "What the hell's that s'posed to mean?"

"_Enterprise _is your life, Trip. Your blood, sweat and tears are all over this ship. Running away won't change that."

"I ain't runnin' away!" he snapped, stung by the turn of phrase.

"It certainly looks like that to me." She folded her arms under the blanket and tilted her chin up defiantly. "You're letting one bad relationship drive you away from all your friends, who'd do anything for you. Including T'Pol. Do you think she'd want this?"

"How the hell would I know what she wants?"

"So ask her, you _baka!_"

The virus, some distant part of him thought, must be really doing a number on her if she was getting her languages mixed up. Either that, or she was very upset. Possibly both.

"She never gives me a straight answer. I'm sick and tired of it. All I want is to get her off my mind, and if puttin' a few dozen light years between us is what it takes, that's what I'll do."

"Oh, Trip." Her anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. "What a mess."

"Ya got that right."

She surprised him for the umpteenth time that day by wrapping her arms around him, blanket and all, and leaning her tousled head against his chest. They were feverish, exhausted, and neither of them were at their best when it came to hygiene. Still, all the neuropressure in the world couldn't replace a good old-fashioned human hug. It was at that moment he had the strangest thought he'd had all day.

_Thank God T'Pol's not here._

Well, obviously, he wouldn't wish this virus on his worst enemy. Whatever T'Pol was to him, she wasn't that. But he had other reasons too.

He could picture it. If T'Pol were here with him in Hoshi's place, she'd be cross-legged on her bunk by now, disappearing into some Vulcan spiritual plane and pretending he didn't exist. He'd be complaining, cracking jokes, picking a fight, trying anything to get her attention, until she snapped and one of their arguments ensued. Not a straightforward one that helped you find answers or at least blow off steam, but one of those endless horrible feedback loops that only hurt each other.

Once they were cured _(Please, God, let there be a cure_) she'd stop by Engineering, offer a professional apology, and he'd be professional right back and pretend everything was fine … until the next time.

Life was like this Decon chamber, he thought, the fever making him philosophical. You were stuck in it while all kinds of crap happened to you. The least that God, or fate, or the universe, should do was let you share it with someone who made it better instead of worse.

He was wondering if he should tell any of this to Hoshi. When she suddenly pulled away from him, however, her skin even paler than before, he decided this was definitely not the time.

"What's wrong, Ensign?"

"Um … I think my medication's wearing off."

"Should I call the Doc?"

"_Onegai. _Please. But first - " She gulped, covered her mouth with one hand, and began stumbling toward the bathroom door. "Hold my hair?"

"Aye, aye," said Trip, pushing up his sleeves.

It was going to be a long night.

/

It had been a long night, and a long day after that.

T'Pol's emotional control would never be as strong as it had been before the Expanse. Thankfully, though, it was at least strong enough for her to keep her composure in front of her shipmates. She kept it while studying the virus; she kept it when Captain Archer gave her what they all believed would be his last command; she even kept it when he called back to tell her that, against all odds, Tucker and Sato had woken up and were going to be fine.

She visited them in Sickbay. She double-checked Dr. Phlox's work. She was calm and logical and everything a Vulcan should be. She made it through an entire day's duty shift on the bridge all the way to her quarters and locked the door.

Then, and only then, did she curl up on her bed and clutch her mother's IDIC pendant until the triangle dug into her palms.

When the door chime sounded, her first instinct was to pounce on whoever it was and nerve-pinch them unconscious. Was five minutes alone too much to ask? "Come in," she snapped.

Of course it would be Trip.

He was in civilian clothes, looking healthy to a degree that defied the laws of medicine and hovering in the doorframe in that awkward manner she had come to expect. It saddened her that he couldn't be comfortable around her anymore, but what else did she expect?

"Can I talk to ya?"

"About what?"

Last year, during their neuropressure sessions, he would have plumped himself down on the bed or the floor and launched into a lively story about the day's misadventures. She didn't remember those times as well as she ought to – the Trellium-D in her system had rendered them blurred and oversaturated, like a bad video – but in retrospect, it wasn't neuropressure or even sex she missed most. It was friendship.

Trip stood opposite her in the middle of the room, gesturing nervously, watching the wooden sculpture on the wall over her shoulder instead of looking into her eyes.

"Look, um … you know how when you think you're dyin' … especially in a slow way, like a disease … everythin' sorta slows down and you get to go over all the choices in your life?"

"I certainly do." _All too well. _"Is that what you experienced during your quarantine?"

"Well, yeah." He scratched the back of his neck. "It made me think about you … about us … and how I wish I could've handled things better last year."

T'Pol swallowed a familiar surge of dismay.

Even for a human, Trip's behavior towards her was completely illogical. He claimed not to want a committed relationship, but then got angry with her when she agreed. He'd been jealous of his own clone. He'd known she was unwell in the Expanse, but instead of giving her the privacy her Vulcan nature required, he'd pushed and prodded and sulked in a way that only made things worse. She had paid for that one Trellium-fuelled night together with enough anger and remorse to last a lifetime.

He couldn't be trying to win her back, could he? Not now. She didn't have the strength to hurt him again.

"Anyway … me an' Hoshi talked a lot when we were stuck in Decon. I got to see some sides of her I didn't know existed, y'know what I mean? And so … I was thinkin' … I'd like to ask her out. On a date. And … I just wanna make sure … " He cleared his throat several times, almost as if the dust from the Klingon scrapyard were still lodged there. "I wanna know if you're okay with that."

Well.

That was the last thing she'd expected.

The primitive side of her couldn't help but feel jealous. It was an unfortunate fact that seeing someone moving out of reach made you want them more. It had been the same way seeing him with Amanda Cole last year. Unlike that time, however, she was sober enough (in every sense of the word) to put those feelings in perspective. Wanting Trip on a physical level didn't give her the right to keep him away from someone who might give him more than that.

Besides, T'Pol had disliked Corporal Cole. She couldn't dislike Ensign Sato. The brilliant young woman who had to battle so many fears was one of the bravest people T'Pol had ever met.

She considered her response very carefully, knowing if she said the wrong thing now, she might hurt their friendship beyond repair.

"Thank you for telling me," she said, "Ensign Sato is an admirable woman."

"She sure is."

"You could do worse."

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

How often had she heard him say that, often loudly and with some profanity attached, both of them seething with frustration over their inability to make each other understand? But she wouldn't let that happen, not today. She was determined to break that pattern one way or another.

"You deserve someone who makes you happy, Trip."

She knew exactly how unconventional that sounded and, out of habit, braced herself for one of his comments about her heritage: _Don't let Soval hear you talking like that, _or _Watch out, you're getting emotional. _But Trip, like her, seemed to be doing his best to learn from past mistakes.

"You too, T'Pol," he said kindly – and then, as if he simply couldn't help it: "Don't tell me happiness is illogical."

"That depends on how you define it."

He rolled his eyes, but as far as she could tell, there was no anger in the gesture. "Awright."

"Would you excuse me? I … " It would do no harm to be honest with him now. "I stayed awake last night monitoring Sickbay. I need to rest."

"Right. Yeah. I should go."

He didn't try to hug her or pat her on the shoulder or show any other affectionate gesture, for which she was grateful. They had never been in the habit of doing that anyway, outside of neuropressure. He simply inclined his head in farewell (in an almost Vulcan manner, probably picked up from her over the years) and turned to leave.

"Trip?"

He turned back.

"I am … most grateful ... to see you returned to health. If we had lost you … "

"But I'm still here," said Trip, encompassing all of _Enterprise _with one pat on the wall. "That's all that matters."

When the door closed behind him, she could sense something else closing as well. If it had a sound, it would have been the whir of _Enterprise_'s warp core powering up, ready for a new mission. If it had a taste, it would have tasted of chamomile tea, clean and herbal, washing away the sweet but sticky residue of a pecan pie.

She changed into her most comfortable and least flattering pajamas, pulled the blankets over her head and fell asleep.

She did not dream of Trip.

/

"Hey, Hoshi. Got a minute? I could use a spotter."

When she saw Trip adjusting the dumbbells in the gym, she'd been on the point of backing away and postponing her own workout until tomorrow. She still couldn't be around him without getting embarrassed after the way she'd behaved that night in Decon: telling him about the black mark on her Starfleet record, interrogating him about T'Pol, lecturing him about his career, throwing up until the whole room smelled, sleep-hacking her way through the locked door and almost getting the whole crew killed …

He looked so pleased to see her, though, his blue eyes so warm and friendly, that she couldn't refuse. She sat down on the floor behind the weight machine and watched him lift, trying not to stare too obviously at the muscles in his arms. But that wasn't easy when he was lying full length in front of her, dressed in nothing but sweatpants and a close-fitting T-shirt. She became suddenly aware of how revealing her own outfit was. Were shorts and a tank top too much – or rather not enough?

"Whew! Feels good," he said between sets. "Can you believe this? I should be floppin' around like a noodle right now, but whatever Phlox did to us, it's left me good as new."

"I know. Strange, isn't it?" She smiled at his upside-down face. "But I think the universe owes us a little good karma by now."

"Guess so." He lowered the dumbbells back into their slot, let go of them, and looked up at her. "Speakin' of which, um … I'm glad you're here. I wanted to ask ya somethin'."

Something in the tone of his voice made Hoshi lift her head to check whether anyone was listening. Corporal Chang and Sergeant Kelly were sharing a punching bag, Malcolm and Travis were having what looked like a race on the treadmills, and Ensign Pierce was tumbling around in the zero-G simulator, but they were far enough away (and making too much noise of their own) to overhear anything Trip and Hoshi might say.

"What is it, um … Commander?"

"Trip. We're off duty."

So it _was_ something personal.

_Please don't let it be about T'Pol again,_ thought Hoshi. She loved her Vulcan mentor like a sister, but jealousy went hand in hand with that. Especially when T'Pol was so obviously making Trip unhappy.

"They're playin' _Castle in the Sky_ on Movie Night," he said. "You wanna go with me?"

"I'd love to!" she exclaimed without thinking. "It's about time you picked a film that wasn't American – no offense."

Hayao Miyazaki's hand-drawn animated films from the 21st century were some of her childhood favorites, especially _Castle in the Sky._ It had everything: flying machines, robots, an ancient language, a lost civilization, a lonely and frightened young girl who was stronger than she looked, an engineer with a heart of gold …

"That's, um, not exactly what I ... " Trip was already flushed from the weight-lifting, but his color was even deeper now. He sat up, turned around, and looked directly into her eyes. "I mean … do _you_ wanna go with _me_?"

It didn't take a genius to decode the subtext there.

"Oh! Um … " The _yes_ was on the tip of her tongue. But wasn't it only three days ago – one in Decon, one in Sickbay, one off-duty – that he'd been halfway to jumping ship on account of T'Pol? Lovely, brilliant, confident T'Pol, who if she ever worried about what a man thought of her, would never let it show. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." To his credit, he didn't ask why or try to laugh the matter off. "Believe me. Phlox won't let me even look at the engines, so I've had lots o'time to think."

"It's just … I have so much respect for Commander T'Pol. As an officer, as a person … don't let me come between you. And please … please don't make me some kind of … replacement. I couldn't stand that."

Trip didn't kiss her or make any other dramatic gestures; they were still in the gym, after all. The MACOs had left and the ensign was climbing out of the simulator, but Malcolm and Travis were still on the treadmills, walking now, and stealing glances in their colleagues' direction.

Trip didn't look away from her even for a moment. His blue eyes burned brighter than the sky above Earth.

"I don't want a replacement T'Pol," he said, his normally casual voice so quietly intense that only Hoshi's ears could have heard it through the whirring treadmills. "It's the original Hoshi Sato I'm interested in. C'mon." Oh, that smile of his, and that voice like molten honey. Did he know what an effect he had on women? "One date. That's all I'm askin'."

"Why? I mean … why now? After almost four years?"

She had noticed Trip from the beginning. She'd told herself he wasn't her type, that she wanted a man who spoke more than just English and read novels instead of comic books. But in one of her worst moments, when she'd been trapped in the transporter buffer and believed she was slowly fading away, Trip had been the last one to see her, the last to speak to her. Three days ago in Decon, when she'd been hallucinating about the Xindi-Reptilians forcing her to decrypt the launch codes for their superweapon (and her failed attempt at suicide), it was Trip who had snapped her out of it. His voice had called her back to life.

He, on the other hand, had never seemed to see her as anything but a colleague. So why now?

"Well … " he said, drawing out the word in that Floridan accent of his the way he did when he was thinking carefully, "Let's just say … there's very few people I could stand to get locked up with an' not go stir-crazy. She's not one of 'em. You are."

"Really?" She couldn't help laughing with surprise until her voice bounced off the walls. Of all the ways to ask someone out on a date, this had to be one of the weirdest. "That's your criterion?"

"What? In our line of work, ya never know when that might happen!"

It did make a kind of sense, though. Trip liked to take care of things, from engines to people, even if that meant literally getting his hands dirty. Maybe a woman who talked a lot, had anxiety issues and wore her heart on her sleeve would actually suit him. Just as long as he let her do some caretaking in return.

"In that case," she added, "You should know I feel the same way."

"Does that mean you'll go out with me?"

"Yes, it does."

She smiled at him. He smiled back. If Phlox's scanners hadn't proven otherwise, she might have thought the virus was coming back, but this slow-building warmth was so much nicer than the fever.

"And does _that _mean," she echoed his question back to him, "That you've changed your mind about transferring to _Columbia_?"

He stood up, held out his hand, and helped her to her feet like the Southern gentleman he was.

"Well, this really smart comms officer I know told me it'd be a bad idea," he said. "I reckon she was right."

Meanwhile, Malcolm and Travis were leaving the gym, chatting in low voices about what sounded like chess strategies and nodding politely as they walked by (although she was almost positive Travis had winked at her over the lieutenant's head on their way out). The treadmills were free. Hoshi headed for the nearest one, figuring she'd better get her cardio now.

She had a feeling her heart was going to need it.


End file.
